Primary Object

The notion of primary object corresponds to the constitution of the object of satisfaction of needs and wishes resulting from the first mother-infant encounter, even before questions of inside/outside, subject/object have been raised. Its incorporation constitutes the kernel of the ego. Freud postulates the existence of this first encounter beginning in 1895 in the "Project For a Scientific Psychology" (1950c). Nevertheless, a full theory of the primary object would have to wait for Melanie Klein and especially Donald Winnicott in 1952...